


We Found Love in a Chili's ToGo

by Amuly



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bottom Richie Tozier, Character Death Fix, Coming Out, Crying, Dirty Talk, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Masturbation, Masturbation in Bathroom, Phone Sex, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Semi-Public Sex, Skype, Stanley Uris Lives, Top Eddie Kaspbrak, Webcam/Video Chat Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 06:30:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21222122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: Richie comes out to Eddie in the airport at a Chili's ToGo. Thus begins, in fits and starts, a long-distance romance for the ages. It mostly involves a lot of dirty talk--luckily, Richie's an expert in that (it's kind of his middle name, you know?).





	We Found Love in a Chili's ToGo

“Eduardo, andale!”

“Ricardo, un momento!” Eddie shouted back down the inn steps. Richie grinned at the bottom, then he heard the sound of heavy luggage being hauled around and his grin dropped. He swore and jumped up the steps three at a time, reaching the landing just as Eddie struggled his second giant suitcase into position.

“You fucking moron, give me that.”

Eddie snorted as Richie took one of the suitcases, but let him.

“What’s your problem?” Eddie asked as he grabbed his second suitcase.

“Set that the fuck down, Eddie. I got this.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and ignored Richie entirely, hissing as he followed him down the stairs. He had to hold his suitcase awkwardly with both hands, and only made it down the first set of stairs by the time Richie had made it to the bottom with the first suitcase. Richie bounded back up the stairs and grabbed the second suitcase, shooting Eddie a glare as he did.

“You’re going to pull your stitches, you stubborn bitch.” He tapped (gently, carefully) at Eddie’s side for emphasis. Eddie winced exaggeratedly and flinched away from the touch.

“Yeah, thanks, I didn’t forget.”

“Well you’re acting like you did.” Richie grunted as he hauled the second suitcase down the rest of the stairs. The rat bastard: this one was somehow _heavier_ than the first one. “Cheese and rice, what do you have in here, rocks?”

“Yes, Richie. I thought I’d bring my collection of interesting geodes to Derry to help fight a child eating space clown.”

Well, sarcasm didn’t explain what Eddie _had_ packed in two oversized suitcases that definitely weighed exactly 49.5 pounds apiece. Richie turned at the bottom of the stairs to find Eddie frowning down at his suitcases, mouthing something silently to himself. After a second he snapped his fingers and started back up the stairs. Richie cursed and shouted up at him: “Careful with the stairs!”

“It’s ten fucking stitches, Richie,” Eddie hollered back down at him without turning around. “That dumb fucking clown missed me by a mile.”

Richie ducked his head and turned his attention back to Eddie’s suitcases, if only so that Eddie wouldn’t see him blink back tears.

The fucking clown missed because Richie grabbed Eddie and rolled him. Because the fucking deadlights showed Richie how the Losers would die, how _Eddie_ would die, and Richie blinked their poison unreality from his eyes just in time to _move_.

He hadn’t told Eddie any of that.

Hadn’t told Eddie a lot of things.

Richie’s fingers ghosted against the pocket of his leather jacket.

“Okay, got it,” Eddie announced. He was holding his toiletry bag to his chest at the top of the stairs. Richie rolled his eyes but was pretty sure he didn’t manage to hide his smile. This fucking guy.

“Vámanos!” Richie ordered, grabbing both suitcases.

“What’s even the rush,” Eddie complained as he limped (probably exaggerating, the baby) out to their rental cars. “My flight doesn’t leave for another five hours.”

“Yeah, but…” Richie’s flight left in three, and it took an hour to drive to the airport. Richie busied himself lifting Eddie’s ridiculously heavy suitcases into the trunk of his stupid oversized SUV rental. “We gotta hit up the airport Chili’s ToGo, Eddie my man.”

Eddie snorted. “Great, get the runs before a two-hour flight back to New York.”

Richie closed the SUV hatchback and turned to face Eddie. He shoved his hand in his pockets, fingering the two tickets to Chicago he had printed off the Town House printer in the dead of night last night, driven by “we all lived!” alcohol and a deeply lacking sense of self-preservation. And a single well-timed text from Stan that was just the bicep emoji and a heart emoji which Richie took (correctly) to mean “you can do this, bro. Pour your big gay heart out.”

Well, it was nut up or shut up time. Or would be, in another hour or so.

Richie called Eddie from the car. They ripped each other the entire drive to the airport, Richie twice speeding up and passing Eddie in a flagrant violation of the rules of the road. Eddie screeched at him and Richie laughed so hard he almost wrecked, hearing Eddie’s road-rage voice get louder and higher with every moving violation Richie committed.

Eddie had TSA pre-check because of course he did. Richie had never gotten around to it even though he absolutely should have. So Eddie went ahead and didn’t keep Richie company because he was a fucking asshole. Instead he got them a table at the Chili’s ToGo and started taking pictures of his plastic mug fountain drink and massive plate of appetizers as Richie went slowly more insane watching apparently _every_ septuagenarian in Maine bent over to take their shoes off ahead of him.

Finally, _finally_, Richie was _through_ airport security, single under-stuffed duffle bag slung across his back as he sought out the Chili’s ToGo. Eddie was facing the main flow of traffic through the airport so Richie couldn’t sneak up on him even though he desperately wanted to. He needed to get Eddie back for that TSA pre-check bullshit.

“Fucking surprised you didn’t finish the appetizers without me,” Richie grunted.

“Well if I’m going to shit myself on a flight today I don’t want to be the only one,” Eddie snickered. He had a soda in front of him, and there was a glass of water in front of Richie’s place. Richie eyed up the water mistrustfully. He was going to need something a lot stronger than water if it really was nut-up-or-shut-up time. And he was out of time, so it had to be, if it ever was.

He grabbed the chair opposite Eddie and poured his collection of too-long limbs into it, not noticing the look Eddie was giving him until he was seated. “Uh. …What?”

“What’s wrong?”

Richie laughed nervously. “What? Wrong? What do you mean? What’s wrong, nothing’s wrong.”

“I figured you’d tell me how I totally don’t have celiacs or my stomach will be fine or… you know, whatever.”

The water was going to have to be strong enough. Richie grabbed it and drank like he was that Indian kid from that tiger-at-sea movie, or whatever. Eddie was squinting at him, eyebrows all rumpled together. Fuck, he was cute. Fuck, this was bullshit.

Fuck, he was married. Very noticeably married. Ring and all.

The waitress brought their appetizers and Richie grabbed for an eggroll, stuffing his face with it to buy him enough time that he could reasonably ignore Eddie’s question.

“So you’re heading back to New York?” Richie started, like that was even a sensical question.

Eddie looked at him with the exact level of scorn such a question warranted. Well. Fair. Richie deserved that.

“Yeah, you know. All my stuff’s there,” Eddie deadpanned.

“Bullshit, all your shit’s on a luggage carousel spread between two forty-nine-point-five pound bespoke Away suitcases.”

Eddie rolled his eyes but smirked as he grabbed for another southwestern eggroll.

“So anyway,” Richie breathed out in a rush. Eddie glanced at him over his food, eyebrows raised.

Nut up or shut up time, Richie.

Beep beep, Richie.

“So anyway, uh, you know my token?”

“You mean the literal fucking token?”

“Yeah, the literal fucking token.”

“What about it?” Eddie asked. He sipped at his soda.

“So it’s like…” Just say it, just fucking say it- “It’s like… a gay thing.”

Eddie blinked. Richie blinked back. That wasn’t… _exactly_…

“I mean.”

Eddie set down his soda with the thick _tap_ of a mostly-full plastic cylinder on plastic tabletop.

“Like I guess… like I’m gay. Or whatever.”

“Or whatever?”

“Not the part I need you to focus on, Eds.”

Eddie stared at Richie like it was his turn to get caught in the deadlights. Then he twisted around and flagged down their waitress like his life depended on it.

“Margherita, please. On the rocks. Sugar.”

“Make that two. Salt for me.” Richie smiled up tightly at the waitress. Then he turned his attention back to Eddie, whose eyes were still too wide.

Richie slumped back in the cheap plastic Chili’s ToGo chair and ran a hand through his hair.

“Fuck, Eds.”

“It’s… I love you, man,” was the first thing Eddie managed to come up with. He blinked and stared across the plastic tabletop at Richie. “Like. You know that, right?”

It wasn’t how Richie needed to hear it. It was said in such a _bro_ way, that ‘man’ tacked onto the end like a flashing neon sign of ‘but I’m straight, I’m a straight guy!’ Richie swallowed and nodded. He flashed what could be mistaken for a smile in bad lighting at Eddie.

“Yeah, Eds. I know.”

Eddie stared down at their appetizers, and for half a second Richie thought maybe Eddie’s germaphobia was going to rear its ugly head. He’d been such a freak about AIDS in the eighties—not wanting to share sodas even, because his mom had drilled into him that _that’s how you got AIDS_. But then Eddie reached over and grabbed another southwestern eggroll and shoved it in his mouth like he was deepthroating it. Richie stifled a giggle.

“Does anyone else know?” Eddie asked after he’d swallowed.

“Stan,” Richie admitted. Eddie frowned. Richie clarified: “I told him when we were like, sixteen.”

“Fuck.”

Then Eddie frowned harder.

“Wait, what the fuck?”

“What the fuck what?”

“What the fuck why the fuck didn’t you tell _me_?”

Richie laughed. Well, fuck me sideways. There it was. Eddie was too fucking fast.

“Uh…”

“I thought I was your best friend,” Eddie whined. “Shit, dude. Every memory I got is you being my best friend.”

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t talk to you about this,” Richie sighed.

Eddie thought about this for a minute. Finally he winced and glanced up at Richie. Eddie’s expression was painfully apologetic.

“Is it because of my mom? Did you think you couldn’t because I’d freak out about AIDS or something?”

Good guess. Not like Richie hadn’t been thinking exactly along those lines mere seconds ago. The easy way out would be to let Eddie think that was all there was to it. To just leave it there.

That was also the coward’s way out. Richie crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself.

“Nah, Eds. It’s because I had a big gay crush and needed Stan to bitch at about it.”

Eddie frowned, then shook his head. “That doesn’t explain why you couldn’t bitch at me about it.”

“Well bitching about your secret crush to your secret crush is generally frowned upon, Eds. Kinda fucks up the ‘secret’ part.”

Eddie, bless his tiny heart, didn’t get it for a second. His expression scrunched up, about to say something stupid back to Richie, when his brain processed Richie’s words. In a second his expression fell open, jaw actually agape.

“Oh look: drinks!” Richie grabbed his marg, licking and drinking without even letting the waitress set it down onto the tabletop. Eddie barely had the courtesy left to let her set his down before he was grabbing at it.

“Fuck, this is salt, fuck,” Eddie swore. He licked and drank it down anyway.

“Help with the hangover,” Richie said, already flashing two fingers at their waitress.

“Bullshit it does. And at our age you need to watch your blood pressure, and salt-”

“I’m not gonna have a heart attack and drop dead from the salt on my margherita,” Richie snapped. “What _might_ give me a heart attack is my best friend not saying shit when I just confessed I’ve been gay for him since we were like ten.”

Eddie gulped at his margherita weakly.

“Ten?” he finally croaked.

Richie glared into his drink.

“Ten,” he mumbled.

Their waitress arrived with two fresh drinks. Richie and Eddie both reached for them like men dying of thirst.

After finishing half his second margherita, Eddie finally set the glass down and took a breath. He leaned forward, scrubbing his hands over the back of his head, mussing up his tidily slicked back hair. It made Richie smile, even as his heart was breaking. Eddie was always at his best when he was mussed up. Peak Loser, in those moments. The most free of his mother’s influence.

“Okay, well, it’s okay. It’s okay, and unless Derry steals our fucking memories from us again like the bitch that it is, I’m still your best friend,” Eddie declared.

“Good to know,” Richie smiled weakly. Eddie jabbed a finger at him.

“Unless you want to replace me with Stan, which is _bullshit_, man, you’re _my_ best friend so I've got to be _yours _right back. That’s only fair.”

“Fair’s fair. I reserve the right to bitch about you to Stan, though, because I can’t be lovesick over you to you.”

“_Love-_” Eddie choked off. He grabbed his margherita and took another big swallow from it. Richie gestured at the waitress. She saw him and nodded. Good girl.

After taking a moment to breathe, Eddie gestured weakly at Richie. “So it’s like… still?”

Oh, right. He guessed he hadn’t really confessed that part to start. Just left it all in the past. Whoops. Could he blame the tequila yet? It definitely didn’t feel like it’d hit him yet, but…

“Uh, yeah. I guess.”

“You don’t…” Eddie folded his hands and unfolded them. “You don’t have someone?”

Richie breathed out a long, long sigh. Eddie winced and pulled his hands back into his chest.

“Shit, Richie, I’m sor-”

“It is what it is, Eds. Look, I was closeted there, for like… until right now, I guess. And since, you know, all that bullshit with the fucking clown, this is me… uncloseting myself, and whatever. So like, now I’ll get out there. Get on grindr or whatever the fuck the kids are on these days. New me. New big gay me.”

Another pair of margs. Richie thanked their waitress by exaggeratedly mouthing _thank you_!!

“Well that’s… great, right?”

“Yeah, Eddie. I’m sure it’ll be great. Hey, maybe the homophobes will get on board and start protesting my shows. Really gin up business for me.”

Eddie winced. His hand twitched across the table, but Richie didn’t reach for it.

“You don’t sound good. You sound fucking pissed.”

Richie shrugged petulantly. He wasn’t sure how he’d been thinking this conversation would go. Couldn’t even imagine what stupid fucking compulsion led him to buy two plane tickets last night and print them off, like Eddie was going to, what? Leave his wife, his job, his entire _life_ for the past twenty _years_ behind and fly across the country with Richie? What the absolute _fuck_ kind of stupid fantasy world had Richie been living in at three am this morning?

Eddie’s ticket was burning a hole in his pocket. At least there was some dignity left to salvage from this conversation. Even if Eddie would never, ever know it.

Richie ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“I don’t know, dude. I guess I’m not very good at coming out. I’ve only done it like, twice.”

Abruptly Eddie jumped up from his chair and grabbed at Richie. It was kind of a battle—Richie was a lot bigger than Eddie and he couldn’t figure out why Eddie was grabbing at him. But then he got the picture, stood up, and Eddie wrapped him up in a firm hug right there in the middle of the airport Chili’s ToGo.

“I’m proud of you, Richie,” Eddie said into his shoulder.

Oh. Well that’s. Nice. Richie hugged back gently, not thinking about the extra ticket crumpling in his jacket pocket, trapped between his and Eddie’s bodies.

“Thanks, but this is pretty gay, dude.”

Eddie snorted and pulled back, shoving Richie gently.

“_You’re_ pretty gay,” he teased.

Richie laughed. “Uh, I think it’s a hate crime to call me ‘gay’ if I’m actually gay.”

“Isn’t that what makes it _not_ hate speech?”

“Don’t pretend to know the plight of my people.”

“_Your_ people? For fuck’s sake, Richie, you dress like a college weed dealer past his prime.”

“That’s an offensive stereotype.”

“What, that gays are well-dressed?”

“No: all my weed dealers are sharp dressers.”

Eddie laughed and then Richie laughed and they both sat back down, sipping more gently at their margs. The tequila was starting to hit him and he suddenly felt a lot better about this whole affair. Okay, so Eddie didn’t suddenly realize he was gay and had the hots for Richie and leave his wife and travel across the country to move in with Richie and buy a Pomeranian. But that had barely had a, like, twenty-five percent chance of happening, at _most_.

Richie tried his best to miss his flight, but Eddie had added Richie’s flight number to his flight itinerary app and started freaking out about the “now boarding” notifications until Richie left just to get him to shut up.

“Hey,” Eddie said, as Richie looped his duffle across his chest.

“Yeah?”

And Eddie was pulling him into another hug, but at least this time Richie was mostly ready for it. They manfully patted each other on their backs, but Eddie clung tightly, and Richie tucked his head behind Eddie’s ear, so it definitely wasn’t as heteronormative as it could have been. When they separated Eddie kept hold of him, hand on his shoulder, one on his waist. Richie felt like spinning him in a waltz.

“We’re keeping in touch,” Eddie told him. “Our memories aren’t getting stolen from us this time. You’re gonna get sick of hearing my voice,” he promised.

Richie snorted. “That’s not what your mother said last night.”

“Shouldn’t you make ‘your father’ jokes now?” Eddie mused.

“Ugh, you suck at comedy, get out of my face.”

“Oh and ‘your momma’ jokes are the height of sophistication!”

“Hey, hey Eddie: fuck you.”

Eddie grinned at him. “Fuck you too, buddy.”

Richie snorted and shook Eddie’s shoulder congenially. He walked away, biting down on his tongue so he didn’t let “Is that an offer?” slip from his stupid trashmouth.

* * *

Richie paid for the in-flight WiFi before he even got to his seat. Then he chucked his dufflebag on the empty seat next to his (Eddie’s seat, _not_ Eddie’s seat, fuck-) and FaceTime’d Stan’s number.

“Pick up, pick up you fucking dick,” Richie muttered to himself. He ignored the admonishing look a mother shot him as she walked her kid down the aisle. Whatever, they were coach passengers. This is why he paid for business class, baby. He was an adult, and he had adult business to attend to. Like crying to his friend about their other friend not hopping on his dick in the bathroom of an airport Chili’s ToGo. If said friend would _answer_ his _fucking_-

“Someone better be dying,” Stan said, face haggard. Richie supposed he was allowed to look kinda like shit when he’d barely survived a suicide attempt last week.

“There is, it’s me.”

“Are you on a plane?”

“I bought an extra ticket for Eddie and he didn’t take me up on it.”

“You’re FaceTiming me on a plane? You’re going to be real popular with the other passengers.”

“I told him I was gay.”

Stan sighed noisily, lifting himself up gingerly to sit up more fully against the headboard of some posh bed. It looked expensive—him and Patricia clearly had a nice life going for them. Richie was just glad they still had that life.

But for now, his crisis.

“I told him I was gay for him.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, technically.”

“Stan, would you fucking-”

“Language, Richie, you’re on a fucking plane.”

“Dickwad.”

“Jerk.”

“Will you just-” Richie pleaded.

Stan sighed and tilted his head back, looking up at the ceiling. He lowered his head after a moment, curly hair flopping down across his forehead.

“What’d he say, exactly? What you’d say, exactly?”

“He didn’t run away screaming if that’s what you’re after.”

“Well that’s a start.”

“He was… you know, whatever. Supportive. After a couple margs.”

“Wait are you drunk?”

Richie snorted. “Hardly. Three weak-ass margs at a Chili’s ToGo ain’t gonna cut it. Not for a working comedian’s liver, at least.” Then tears sprang to Richie’s eyes and what the _fuck_, what the _fuuuuck_. “I don’t know what I was fucking thinking, Stan,” Richie did _not_ sob, he said it _manfully_, in maybe a mournful manner. But he wasn’t fucking _crying_ on a plane to his friend via FaceTime, that definitely wasn’t the current situation.

“Jesus, Richie-”

“Why is that every Jew’s favorite swear? It’s not even a swear for you.”

“Because we think it’s funny to make you gentiles uncomfortable.”

“He wasn’t going to leave his wife for me.”

“Of course he wasn’t, Richie,” Stan agreed, gently.

Richie pressed his left hand to his eyes under his glasses, _not_ crying. “I’m a fucking idiot. I’m a thirteen-year-old boy and an idiot.”

Stan stayed quiet on the other end of the line. After a few manly sobs Richie took his hand from his eyes and glared at his phone.

“This is where you’re supposed to reassure me that I’m not an idiot.”

“Or a thirteen-year-old boy? Yeah, problem with both those things-”

“Yeah, I fucking know, I _am_.”

“Look, he was cool with it?”

Richie sniffed loudly. The flight attendants were starting to wander through the aisles to tell everyone to prepare for take-off. Apparently Richie looked miserable enough that they didn’t even stop next to him.

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s fucking- He gave me a hug.”

“And this was in the Chili’s ToGo?”

“Yeah, what?”

“…I see.”

“Well _fuck you_ very much!”

“Listen man, what did you expect?”

Richie groaned and hit his head against the back of his chair.

“I don’t know, I don’t know! For him to say, ‘oh, holy shit, Richie, I’ve also had a big gay crush on you since we were kids, I just forgot it too, but I figured you never could have felt the same way so I never mentioned it, and I’m married, but now that you bring it up, let’s fly away together and I’ll overnight the divorce papers to Myra.’ I mean, was that too much to expect?”

Stan waited a beat. Richie swore and closed his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah: I fucking hear it.”

“As long as you hear it,” Stan confirmed.

“Alright, whatever, you’re no help at all, Stanley.”

“I never am,” Stan agreed.

Richie opened one eye to look at him. “Hey: rest up.”

“Am doing, Richie.”

“Seriously: no more scaring us like this. Clown’s dead. You’re alive. Stay alive.”

“Doing my best.”

“Well your best fucking sucks, you dick.”

“Love you, Richie.”

Richie swallowed thickly. “Yeah. Yeah, love you too.”

Stan hung up and Richie sighed, staring at his phone. No texts from Eddie. It was probably too early to hope for a text from Eddie, right? Right.

Except, one minute before take-off, Richie’s phone pinged.

It was just a thumb’s up emoji, but the notification had _Eddie Kaspbrak_ at the top.

Well, shit, then. Richie grinned and turned off his phone. Alright.

* * *

“What does an old token have to do with you being gay?”

Richie blinked blearily into the darkness. Then he sat up, held his phone out from himself to read _Eddie_ in glowing white letters. He brought the phone back to his ear.

“What?”

“You said. In the Chili’s ToGo-”

Fucking Chili’s ToGo.

“-when you started. You talked about your token.”

Oh. Yeah, he guess he did. Richie wiped at his face.

“What the fuck time is it, Eddie?”

“It’s eight am. I’m on the subway.”

Richie glanced at his bedside clock. Oh, it was seven. Why the fuck was it so dark? Oh right: fall. Chicago. That would do it.

“How the fuck are you getting signal?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Well fuck me sideways,” Richie mumbled. He almost laid back down. It wasn’t his fault his gigs required he stay out until like three or four. It was his _job_.

“Richie? The token?”

“Right, okay. Fuck. Alright, hang on, I need some coffee. What the fuck are you doing on the subway, isn’t that like, your worst nightmare? An enclosed tube full of New Yorkers?”

“Car’s in the shop,” he said. “Remember I said I crashed it when Mike called?”

“Right, fuck. Okay, coffee is…” Richie poked at his Keurig. It gurgled to life. “Okay, happening. You want to know about the token from the Majestic.”

“Yeah. It’s…” Eddie hesitated. “It… does it have something to do with me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Well fuck you too, Tozier.”

“Is that an offer, Kaspbrak?”

Eddie’s huffing little laugh on the other end of the phone was like air. Richie clutched at his cell, pressing it to his ear like a lifeline. He was smiling. When did he start smiling? Probably the second he heard Eddie’s voice at ass-o’clock in the morning.

“My commute isn’t forever, Richie…”

“Alright, here we go, coffee is getting into my mouth,” Richie promised. He sipped on his Dunkin’ Donuts brew and sighed loudly.

“That summer, when we were all fighting over It. There was some new kid in town, and your mom had you on lock-down after your broken arm.”

“Did you cheat on me, Tozier?”

“I wish,” Richie snorted. “We played Mortal Kombat. You know, stupid shit. But turns out he was Bowers’ cousin or some shit.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit, Richie, I’m sorry. Did he kick the shit out of you?”

“No, no.” Richie leaned against his kitchen counter and closed his eyes, remembering. He tucked his phone against his ear so he could wrap both hands around his coffee mug. “Just called me a faggot, you know. Same old same old.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah, well. It was the eighties.”

“I mean, Bowers was also a fucking It-surrogate psychopath. He stabbed me in the face.”

“Mmm. I’m glad I hatcheted that fucker to death.”

“Nicely done.”

“Thanks.”

Richie could hear the sounds of the subway now that Eddie had mentioned it. Other passengers, screech of the rails, the garbled announcer voice saying who all knows what. Richie pictured Eddie in his suit, all dressed up for work. Respectable.

Wedding band securely on his finger.

Richie drank his coffee.

“So that’s the story,” Eddie prompted.

“Yeah, that’s about it. Token represented all my repressed gayness, or whatever.”

“Shit, Richie. You should have told us.”

“Well, looks like I didn’t need to. We killed that fucking clown.”

“_I_ killed that fucking clown.”

“Uh, I seem to remember a group effort. Hands on his heart-”

“_I’m_ the one that hurt it first! _I’m_ the one who came up with the plan for _how_ to kill it!”

“No you didn’t,” Richie snorted. “Mike came up with the plan. You just rambled on about making it small when you thought you were dying.”

“I’d been _stabbed_!”

“You were _grazed_,” Richie teased, because he could tease. Because what he saw in the deadlights hadn’t come to pass. Because he kept his wits about him just barely enough to shove Eddie to the side, to move the blade six inches to the right. Richie listened through the phone to a life living a thousand miles away, and smiled.

“Whatever,” Eddie grumbled. Richie hummed.

He might have drifted off for half a second, just standing against his kitchen counters, because Eddie had to say “Richie?” a couple times before Richie shook himself and replied.

“Sorry, what?”

“I’m honored you told me.”

“Fucking gay.”

“Yeah yeah, fuck you too, Tozier.”

“Fuck you harder.”

Eddie laughed, sharp and surprised on a subway beneath New York City. Richie grinned in his Chicago apartment, still delighted he could make Eddie laugh like that. Catch him off guard after all these years.

“You know, now that I know, all that has kind of a different edge, you know.”

“Yeah, exactly. Gives me a whole new half of material I can work with, now. Shoulda gone gay years ago, my manager is thrilled.”

“You don’t even write your own material,” Eddie reminded him.

“I do now.”

“Shit, really? That’s-hey, _ASSHOLE_! Yeah, you! What the fuck do you think you’re doing? The doors open at the same time for everybody, you prick. What are you going to do with the extra nanosecond you just bought yourself with an elbow to my ribs, huh? No, fuck _you_ very much.”

Richie held the phone away from his face so he could double over laughing.

“Anyway, so. Hey, that’s great, Richie!”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed, you moron,” Richie warned.

“Better men have tried and failed.”

“And space clowns.”

“And space clowns.”

It became a _thing_ after that. Even after Eddie got his car back (which didn’t seem to lessen the amount of screaming fights that interrupted the follow of their conversation): Eddie would call Richie at ass stupid o’clock in the morning, Central Standard Time, or on his way home from work at a much more reasonable hour, like mid-afternoon for Richie. And they’d just… bullshit. About work, both Richie and Eddie’s, or about the other Losers—where Mike had ended up now, Ben and Bev’s rapidly developing relationship, Bill’s shitty new book that they all told him was great (yeah, turns out getting almost murdered by a clown was great for some personal revelations but didn’t magically make you a better writer).

They didn’t really talk about Eddie’s personal life. And there was nothing to say about Richie’s personal life. Until-

“I’m not sitting through three hours of those teeny bopper kids just for two minutes of Fassbender making googly eyes at McAvoy. Give me dicks on dicks or get out of my face.”

Eddie was wheezing laughing, so hard that Richie kinda worried about him wrecking his stupid giant Cadillac. But eventually he recovered and put in, “Wait, which one do you think is hot? Fassbender or McAvoy?”

“Both. Neither. Are you asking what’s my type, Eddie my dear?”

Richie grinned, practically feeling Eddie’s blush through the phone. He was still lounging around in bed, like he normally did when Eddie called him for his morning commute. Richie scratched a hand over his stomach as he imagined Eddie’s flustered expression.

“So Fassbender, then.”

Richie laughed _way_ too hard. He could hear Eddie getting worked up. “In what _universe_ do you look more like _Fassbender_ than _McAvoy_, you textbook Napoleon complex?!”

“There’s more to me than my height! And I’m average! I’m taller than fucking _McAvoy_!”

“You’re not blond!”

“Fucking Fassbender isn’t blond either-”

“You’re not… Eds!”

“Don’t call me Eds you jackass.”

“You wanna hear I just have eyes for you? Do I detect a note of jealousy?”

Eddie quieted down at that, and Richie winced. Shit, he’d gone too far. He’d fucked it up. As his brain scrambled itself to stillness, Eddie came back:

“I… Isn’t there anybody you got, Richie? You know. In Chicago? For yourself?”

“You asking me if there’s a special boy in my life?” Richie snorted, rolling his head to look at the perpetually empty other side of his bed. “Oh yeah, I got a boy here right now. Some nineteen-year-old twink. At least, I think he’s nineteen. Didn’t check his ID, shit, Eddie, you bail me out when the Hollywood elites try to Kevin Spacey me-”

Eddie groaned at the extremely poor taste joke.

“Nah,” Richie admitted. “No one to write home about. You know how gay guys are.”

“Isn’t that an offensive stereotype?” Eddie pointed out.

“Aren’t _you_ an offensive stereotype, midget in a Cadillac picking fights like a meth’d up Pomeranian?”

“Man, that fucking Pomeranian.”

“Is it weird that now I kinda want one?” Richie mused.

“Well don’t fucking get one or I’m never visiting you.”

Richie grinned. “I bet you’re not even allergic. I bet your mom just said that.”

“Not because of allergies, dipshit, because I watched one turn into a crazy monster embryo zombie who-the-fuck-knows-what in front of my eyes.”

“Oh, sure, that.”

“Yeah, _that_, Richie.”

Richie giggled quietly into his phone. Eddie picked up the thread of their conversation:

“Besides, I think that stereotype is mostly about like, gay guys in their twenties. Every gay guy I know is married. Because we’re all, you know: old.”

“Geeze, way to hit where it hurts,” Richie complained. He shot another longing glance at the empty half of his bed.

Eddie knew why Richie didn’t have anyone. It was because Richie was still hung up on that annoying little brat he fell in love with when he was ten years old. All this interest in his love life was just Eddie trying to alleviate his guilt, or pawn Richie off on someone so he could put a period on this, on Richie, on Richie’s inconvenient gay love.

“Shit, hey, client’s calling in, I gotta take this, I told them I would.”

“Yeah yeah: make it awkward and then bail on me.”

“Hey: send me some grindr pics or something. We can make a game of it. I’ll give you my best friend criticisms of all the hot twinks in Chicago.”

“Yeah, pickings are pretty slim…” Richie grumbled, but without any real ire. His heart was, hell, kinda warmed by the gesture. Eddie was inserting himself in his life, even when he couldn’t be there in the way Richie wanted him to be.

Wanted him to _insert_ himself, that was. Hey-o. Richie gave himself a high-five.

“Okay, sorry, shit, last ring. Bye Richie!”

He had hung up before Richie even had a chance to say goodbye.

So Richie spent the rest of the morning sending Eddie pictures of his ass in increasingly improbable positions around his apartment. He may be a thousand miles away, but Richie Tozier knew how to annoy the absolute hell out of his best friend.

* * *

The phone call wasn’t at its usual time. In fact, Richie hadn’t heard from Eddie for a couple days—well, nothing more than a few stupid memes texted back and forth—and Richie had talked himself twice out of calling himself. That wasn’t how they did things, and when he asked, kinda circuitously, Eddie had texted back a sleepy emoji and “busy week,” so Richie dropped it and contented himself counting down the days until the end of the work week (well, the end of Eddie’s work week. Which was right around when Richie’s work week _began,_ but whatever).

Eddie finally called him late Friday night. Like, way too late for “we’re in bed by nine most nights” Kaspbrak household. Richie had to fight back a “what’s wrong” as soon as he picked up.

Luckily, Eddie never left him hanging.

“So, Myra and I are separated.”

Richie waited way too long. Then, finally:

“Oh. Sorry, dude.”

“Nice try,” Eddie snorted, but he didn’t sound mad. He just sounded tired.

“Do, uh…” Richie wasn’t sure what to say in this situation. Mostly because Eddie already knew exactly how he felt about this, so there was no use trying to bullshit him.

“Moved into a new apartment this week,” Eddie continued, saving Richie from having to come up with something. “It’s why I couldn’t talk much, sorry. Once we decided it was kinda… done.”

“She kicked you out, huh?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t blame her.”

Richie thought he could find plenty of blame to go around and none of it would be on Eddie.

“We haven’t slept together in months.”

Richie… wasn’t sure what to do with that. He sat up a little straighter on his couch, though.

“Well, that blows,” Richie said, for lack of anything better to say.

“Well, yeah. And doesn’t, you know. Because of the no sex thing.”

Richie snorted hard. Clever Eddie.

“How’d you know?” Eddie asked.

Richie blinked, brain racing through the two minutes of conversation they’d had to try and trace whatever Eddie was asking now.

“You gotta give me more to go on there, Eds.”

“That you were gay.”

A shiver went down Richie’s body.

He fought the compulsion to text Stan a bunch of party hat celebrating confetti emojis.

“You. It was you,” Richie admitted. He grabbed his phone and slapped it onto speaker mode, setting it on his chest. “Everything Ben and Bill felt about Bev, I felt about you. Felt it before Bev came along. I knew what it was.”

“What did you feel about me?”

Eddie’s voice was light, forced-casual over the phone. Richie’s right hand drifted down to his waistband, dick already half-hard. He wasn’t stupid, no matter what his act said. He knew why Eddie was asking. He knew where this was going.

Richie fought to keep his expectations in check. And his voice steady.

“Back then? I wanted to take care of you.” Richie’s stomach hitched, fingertips brushing just over his waistband. “I wanted to give you things. Food you couldn’t eat, toys your mom wouldn’t let you play with. I wanted to keep you at my house all the time, where your mom couldn’t get to you. I wanted to touch you-”

“Richie, we were like, ten.”

“I don’t mean sexually,” Richie protested. “I mean, that didn’t show up until I was like… twelve.”

Eddie laughed softly and Richie grinned at his phone. He loved making Eddie laugh.

“Just like. Hold your hand. Throw my legs over yours. Touch you just _all the time_, anytime I could.” Richie took a breath, fingertips swirling in the very top of his pubic hair. “I wanted to make you laugh, all the time.”

A soft sound from Eddie’s end of the line, something Richie was hesitant to identify, or scared to.

Eddie didn’t say anything. Richie licked his lips.

“Eds?”

Forced-casual: “yeah?”

“Eds, are you…”

“You’ve got a voice for radio, you know that, Richie?” Eddie hummed.

A thrum went through Richie’s groin at the low, heady way Eddie said that.

“Eddie, are you drunk?”

“Had a finger of the good stuff when I brought the last box over today and handed over my key to Myra,” Eddie admitted. “Not drunk, though.”

Richie took a breath. “Do you want me to keep talking, Eddie?”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmured.

Richie’s fingers slipped below his waistband.

“Do you want me to talk about how I wanted to touch you when we got older?”

“Richie…”

Richie breathed hard as he curled his fingers around the base of his dick, chest already heaving. He reached up and adjusted his phone, making sure it’d stay in place.

“Do you know what I’d do to you, Eddie? If I ever got my hands on you?”

“If I ever let you get your hands on me,” Eddie tried to snark back, but his voice was so shot through with breathy arousal that it just made Richie harder. He bit back a groan.

“Yeah, yeah, Eddie: if you ever let me. I’d pull you out of those stupid little cardigans you decided were cool, and those uptight little polos-”

Richie blinked, suddenly picturing the scar along Eddie’s right side, where Pennywise almost had him. He tugged off his glasses so he could wipe his face against his sleeve. Fuck, this was supposed to be sexy. Okay, sexy.

“I’d mess you up, Eddie,” Richie promised, pitching his voice low, letting it get rough.

Eddie grunted. The little sound drove Richie _crazy_. He rubbed the head of his dick.

“I’d bite your nipples, I’d give you sloppy hickies up and down your neck. I’d mess up your hair, I’d kiss you until you had beard burn and your lips were all red and swollen. I’d get you fucking _wet_, Eddie.”

“_What the fuck_,” Eddie whispered.

“You’d be leaking through your tightie whities by the time I got to them, Eddie. You wear tightie whities still, don’t you?”

“Going through my shit, Richie?”

“Nah, I can just tell.”

“What about you?”

“_Au naturale_, of course.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah you will be,” Richie promises. “When I’m through with you.”

“Yeah?” Eddie breathed.

Richie pulled his hand out of his sweatpants long enough to spit on it, then returned it to his dick and started stroking. He wondered if Eddie heard that.

“Oh yeah. After you’re leaking through your tightie whities, after you’re so worked up it _hurts_, I’ll get you out of those stupid pleated khakis you probably wear to work every day. You’re probably wearing them right now, aren’t you?”

“You’re a prick.”

“More worried about _your_ prick, Eddie. And I’d rub the head of it—over your undies, not under them. Just really get you sloppy. Ruin your undies with your precome. Get them so wet they’re see-through, so your red, hard dick is looking out at me.”

“_Fuck_.”

Richie fisted his dick, needing lube but not willing to slow down or stop. He spit into his hand again, even though his mouth felt dry. He bit back another groan as he resumed stroking with the extra slickness. He wasn’t sure how much they were supposed to be admitting, here. Was Eddie okay with him jacking off? Was this just Trashmouth talking trash? Richie didn’t want to scare him off. Richie would _die_ if he scared Eddie off now, when they were so close.

“You want me to take it out, Eddie?” Richie asked, even though it scared him to ask. He was an idiot, like that: always wanting more.

“Yeah, yeah, Richie, please.” Eddie’s voice was high and needy. Richie tossed his head to the side, eyes squeezed shut as he fucked his fist.

“Okay,” he gasped, regaining something adjacent to composure. “Okay, Eddie. I’ll take you out.” _I never could deny you anything_. “I’d take you out, tug your sopping wet undies down.” Richie could hear the rustle of fabric on Eddie’s end of the phone. Fuck, had he waited for Richie to take off his underwear? Richie squeezed at the base of his dick, staving off his orgasm. “Then I’d grab hold the base of your dick in my big hand. What kinda dick you have, Eds?”

“Normal,” Eddie choked out. “Six inches?”

“Of course you fucking measured it,” Richie snorted.

“Like you fucking didn’t!” Eddie shot back, but it lacked any heat.

“Spoilers,” Richie cooed. “I bet you’re thinking you want to shut me up,” he continued. Eddie made some kind of noise, almost like he wanted to say “no, don’t stop talking,” but then he remembered what they were doing and swallowed the sound. Richie kept going: “And since it’s your first time with a guy, I’m gonna give you everything you want, Eddie my dear. Your biggest fantasy: to shut up Richie Tozier’s big mouth.”

“How am I going to do that?” Eddie choked out. Richie could hear him, now: the sound of his fist slapping wetly against his groin. He sounded close, fuck, that _slap slap slap_ going fast like Richie got at the end. Richie sped up his strokes like he couldn’t help it, like his hand and Eddie’s were connected via quantum entanglement or some such voodoo magic bullshit.

“I’m gonna put my mouth to better use, just for you, Eds. I’m gonna hold the base of your dick in my fist, and I’m gonna wrap my big mouth around the head of your dick and slide down until I’m gagging on it, Eddie.”

“Shit, _fuck, shitshitshit-_”

Fucking _shit_.

Eddie was moaning over the phone like a fucking whore. Richie’s hand flew over his dick until he was coming, orgasm punching out of him like the jizz that landed on his shirt, all the way up to his nipple. His phone jerked and started to slide off his chest with the force of his full-body tremors until he grabbed at it, held it tight in his left hand and listened to Eddie moan and groan his way through what sounded like the _longest fucking orgasm ever_.

Richie breathed hard, tugging the head of his dick loosely as he wrung the last few drops of come from it. He listened to Eddie’s moans dissipate until the only sound over the line was his panting breaths. Richie waited for the crisis to hit, even as he breathed through the best orgasm he’d had in years.

“Th… Thanks,” Eddie finally stuttered out.

“Careful, you sound like Bill,” Richie warned.

“_Fuck_,” Eddie swore, reverently. After another beat: “I should have figured you’d be good at dirty talk. It’s in the name, huh?”

“Yeah well you suck at it,” Richie pointed out. “I had to do all the fucking work.”

“Well it was my first time,” Eddie pointed out.

“Practice makes perfect.”

“Yeah it will.”

Richie’s stomach flipped. Tears sprang to his eyes and he swore. He pressed a hand over his eyes. What the _fuck_. Thank fuck Eddie wasn’t here to see him like this.

He wanted to ask if Eddie was cool with this. Like if he was having a big gay freak-out or something. As his best friend, Richie should probably be the one to help him through it. On the other hand, you couldn’t really freak out about your first gay experience with the guy you just experienced it with. Or, Richie supposed you _could_, but it was kind of rude.

On the other end of the phone Eddie yawned, and Richie found him yawning back.

“Hey, I hate to fuck and run…” Eddie started.

“Nah, sounds like you’ve had a week,” Richie reassured him.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. You don’t have a show tonight, right?”

“Nope. So I’ll be up bright and early at like, noon. One pm, tops.”

Eddie snorted. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

Richie hesitated, staring at his phone. Finally he just said: “Night, Eddie.”

“Night, Richie.”

And that was that. Richie watched the call disconnect on his chest when Eddie hung up. Then he picked up his phone and texted Stan.

_Eddie and Myra split up and Eddie is gay now???_

After a few minutes, during which time Richie mostly stared dumbly down at his shirt and picked at little dried flecks of come, his phone lit up with a reply:

_He tell you?_

_Well he called me up to have phone sex, so?_

The phone flashed with Stan’s name, incoming call.

Richie let it go to voicemail, giggling the whole time.

_PICK UP YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE_.

Richie actually did want to talk about his big gay victory, so he picked up the second time Stan called. Woulda been funnier to let it go more times, but, needs must.

“Who’s calling at this late hour?” Richie asked, doing an old man voice. “Why, you youths and your late-night Friday parties-”

“Do you ever shut the fuck up?”

“Hm, déjà vu. No wait, that was Eddie saying ‘please _don’t_ stop talking’ five minutes ago…”

“What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know! Eddie called to tell me him and Myra split and he’s got a new apartment, and then next thing I know he’s all ‘_talk dirty to me, Richie_.’”

“I’m one hundred percent sure that’s not how that happened.”

“Well you’d be like ninety-five percent wrong, Stanley my dear.”

“Did he initiate it?”

“Fuck yeah he initiated it!”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking!”

Richie waited for Stan to say something else. When he didn’t, Richie shook his phone lightly.

“Stan? Staniel? Hellooo…”

“Well, I mean. These are all good signs.”

“Good _signs_? Eddie was just begging for my dick!”

“Ungk, seriously, Richie…”

“Well he _was_.” Okay, so actually, more like the other way around, but _whatever_, Eddie knew what he was doing, it’s not like he was gonna try to pull some “it’s just a brojob” bullshit or “it’s not gay as long as _I_ don’t suck a dick…” Eddie had thought this through. _Relentlessly_. From _every possible angle,_ definitely. He was separated from his wife, for fuck’s sake!

“They haven’t had sex in months,” Richie preened.

“Okay, again, not something I need to know.”

“He wants me.”

“I mean, in the abstract… yeah, sure. Seems like he does.”

“In the _flesh_.”

Stan sighed. “Well, you can’t be sure of that until you two actually… in the flesh.”

“Why can’t you just let me have this, Stan? Why do you hate my joy? Give me my joy, Stan. I need it.”

“I’m just trying to help you manage your expectations,” Stan countered. “This could just be Eddie… experimenting.”

“He wouldn’t experiment with me,” Richie protested.

“Well. He definitely _shouldn’t_, it’d be pretty un…” Stan’s voice drifted off.

“Stan? Earth to Staniel? Come in, Stan, _dear God, we’re losing him, Captain!_”

“Fucking hell, shut up for five fucking seconds…”

“_Ksshh_, Stanley is unresponsive, _kshhh_, evasive maneuvers, try evasive maneuvers!”

“Why am I in a fucking space shi- never mind. So, uh… Yeah, that’s great and you should be happy.”

Richie pulled his phone away from his ear and stared suspiciously at it. Then he thumbed at the FaceTime button. Stan answered after a second, glaring at him.

“What?”

Richie squinted at Stan’s face. “What the fuck was that?”

“What the fuck was what?”

“What just happened, there?”

“What just happened, where?”

Richie shoved himself upright on his couch, squinting down at his phone. “You’re an annoying fucking child, has anyone ever told you that.”

“Not to keep going with the repeating-you thing, but, pot meet kettle?”

“Why’d you go from ‘managing expectations’ and ‘he’s probably just using you as an experiment’ to ‘I’m happy for you both may you have many fat children?’”

“I didn’t-”

Richie caught it, this time. Stan’s eyes flickered to the top of his phone, like he was reading an incoming text.

_“Is Eddie texting you_?!”

Stan’s face blanched. “What?”

“Oh my heavenly fuck, what’s he saying, _Stan_! Stan! You _have_ to tell me what he’s saying.”

“This is so middle school, I’m not doing this.”

“Is it something good? It’s something good, isn’t it! Holy shit, it’s not an experiment for him, is it?! Stan! Stanley!”

“I’m hanging up now,” Stan told him with a grimace. But then, before he did, the smallest flicker of a smile. His eyes softened, and then he rolled them. “Congrats, you two. Don’t fuck it up.”

Hol. Ee. _HELL_! Richie held his phone to his chest, fighting the urge to text Eddie all sorts of terrible things. Eddie was actually into him, like, openly into him (or at least, open to the Losers, which is all that mattered). Eddie wanted him, Eddie and him were going to _date_, Richie was going to _fuck_ the love of his _fucking life_, someday soon.

Richie gave in to the compulsion to text Eddie, but successfully managed to avoid pouring out his entire heart in a mixture of emojis and misspelled words. Instead he took a too-close picture of something and sent it off with “Guess what this is! Prize for the winner.”

When he was brushing his teeth (Eddie would want him to) his phone dinged with Eddie’s reply:

_Did you just send me a picture of dried cum???_

* * *

Richie drummed his fingers on his laptop, fidgeting. He looked at himself in the Skype camera, lifting his chin, taking in every blotch and skin tag that he could see in the harsh blue light of his computer screen. Fuck, should he red shift it or something? Should he dim the lights? Eddie was going to take one look at him-

_Beep boo boop. Beep boo boop_.

Richie slapped the “accept call” button so fast that he only had time to consider how lame that made him seem. But then his laptop screen was filled with Eddie’s nervous smile and Richie was entranced, hypnotized like it was the fucking deadlights again, except instead of Eddie’s death it was Eddie’s life flashing before his eyes. Richie smiled helplessly back and tried not to cry. What the fuck, self?

“Heeeey, Richie…” Eddie said. Then he stopped. Richie could tell he was helplessly rubbing his palms against his legs.

He was in after-work clothes, just a t-shirt from some fun-run or something, whatever yuppie New Yorkers did. Richie was kinda glad he hadn’t dressed up. It woulda made Richie feel like he _should_ have dressed up, like he was doing something wrong by _not_ dressing up.

“Uh, Richie?”

Eddie was leaning forward, peering into his laptop camera. Richie realized he had just been sitting there, frozen, in silence, for a whole five seconds or so. He snickered and moved his mouth silently, frowning in concern. Eddie swore.

“Shit, Richie? Can you hear me?”

Richie kept mouthing nonsense _watermelon cumquat watermelon cumquat watermelon ipso factso mortgage watermelon cantaloupe _and jerking irregularly in the frame.

“Ah shit, this stupid fucking—I swear, the WiFi in this place is _bullshit_, it’s like, sad divorced dad’s apartments, fuck me, I swear to fucking rice I’m going to give the landlord talking-to tomorrow about the shit internet, he’s throttling the fucking modem, I know he is, it’s probably because too many of these guys are watching porn during peak hours-”

Richie laughed and Eddie jerked, frowning down at his laptop screen. “Richie? Richie! Can you hear me?”

Breaking down, Richie nodded. “Fucking hell, Eds, do not go shouting at your manager, he’s probably a three hundred-pound Russian who’s going to disappear you into the Hudson.”

Eddie sat back in his chair, face red. “You fucking asshole, you _fucking asshole_-”

“Wait wait, I didn’t realize we started! Let me just get out of these pants…”

“I should hang up, I should just hang up on you and-”

“Aw come on, Eddie, don’t be like that. Besides, if you hang up now you’ll miss the show…”

Eddie’s face was a picture of conflict. He stared at Richie—at Richie’s chest, maybe his mouth, if Richie had to guess his line of sight—and thought about this, heavily, for long seconds. Richie beamed and did a little shimmy in his chair. Yeah, Eddie. Give in to your baser urges. He always did when Richie had any say in it.

“Alright, fuck. But I wish there was a way to shut you up,” Eddie grumbled.

“You know the way,” Richie told him. He thought about putting a finger in his mouth, or something—you know, something sexy?—but as soon as he lifted his hand to go for it he suddenly realized how weird and awkward it felt. He tried landing the hand anywhere sexy, rubbing down his chest or his collarbone or something, but found himself at an utter loss as to how to be sexy on camera. Oh no. This was a bad idea.

But Eddie was grinning at the last thing Richie had said, Richie’s internal conflict about where to put his _stupid_ _hand_ apparently not registering with him.

“Yeah, well, we’re a thousand miles apart. My dick’s not _that_ big.”

“Right I forgot what you normal guys were left to work with,” Richie said, fake-apologetic. Eddie flipped him off. Richie flipped him off back. They grinned at each other through their laptop screens.

Eddie dropped his finger first, nervous smile slipping back over his face. He rubbed his palms against his thighs again.

“Shit, Richie. I’m not sure how to… you know.”

Richie swallowed thickly. He was pretty sure when Eddie suggested this—Eddie! Eddie had suggested this!!—after two weeks of increasingly filthy late-night phone calls that Eddie was going to want Richie to put on the show. After all, even though it was always Eddie who initiated it (to the point that Richie had developed a Pavlovian response to his phone ringing, it was becoming a problem…) he always made Richie do most the talking. Which Richie was happy to do, no doubt, especially since Eddie was probably having some sort of quiet sexuality crisis on his own.

“Close your eyes,” Richie told him.

Eddie shot him an annoyed frown. “That’s kinda the opposite of the point of Skyping, Richie.”

“Well I’m not going to close mine.”

Eddie squirmed.

“Just…” Richie held both hands up. “Trust me? Close your eyes, just for the start.”

“Okay.” Eddie started to close his eyes, then snapped one open suspiciously. “You’re not going to screenshot or record any of this, right?”

“I’ve already got audio of you saying ‘_Yeah Richie, pound me with that big dick_.’” Richie did a _flawless_ rendition of Eddie’s phone sex voice. Eddie was Not Amused.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Uh spoilers much, Eddie? C’mon, just close ‘em.”

So Eddie closed his eyes. Richie licked his lips, stomach flipping already, even though Eddie was in that baggy 5k shirt and just… sitting there.

Richie rolled his chair back so his groin was in the frame on Skype. Ugh, it was not an especially attractive look. Oh well, hopefully by the time Eddie opened his eyes his inner aesthetic critic would be all muddled with horniness. Richie breathed and rubbed once at his dick over his sweatpants.

“Alright. So you know I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do when we finally have the time for one of us to visit each other, right?”

Eddie smiled slightly, eyes still closed. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“Well, I figure it’ll be me visiting you, since I travel to NYC pretty regularly anyway, you know?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And I figure you’ll pick me up from the airport.”

Eddie snorted. “This really is a fantasy.”

“Beep Beep, Eddie,” Richie snickered.

“I never say anything!” Eddie protested.

“So you’re there with your stupid big Cadillac. And I can’t keep my hands off you. I kiss you as soon as I climb into the door. And not like a ‘hey babe, nice flight?’ kiss, but a ‘I need you _now_,’ kind of kiss.”

“I’m driving a car, Richie,” Eddie pointed out, but he was still smiling.

“So you don’t have to do any work: I’ll handle it.”

“Richie…” Eddie warned.

“We’re not even out of the pick-up zone before my head’s in your lap. I nuzzle my nose against your crotch, trying to smell you through those stupid fucking khaki pants I’m sure you’re wearing.”

“This is so unsafe,” Eddie murmured, but his lips had parted ever just so.

“Yeah, but you don’t stop me. It’s because we’re both so desperate. I’m gagging for it, my mouth is _watering_. I sniff at you, rubbing my nose against your crotch. Your dick is getting hard, I can feel it against my chin, my nose. I finally open my mouth and suck at you through your pants-”

“I unbuckle my pants with one hand-”

“I stop you. I grab your hand and put it back on the steering wheel. Safety first, Eddie.”

“Fucking bastard,” Eddie murmured. His shoulder was moving—he was rubbing himself through his pants. Richie bit back a groan and rubbed himself through his own sweats. He wasn’t going to take them off—not yet. Now that he’d got going he had a plan.

“I keep mouthing at you through your pants, getting you soppy wet. You’re swearing at me-”

“Fucking right I am-”

“But I’m ignoring you. You’re getting so hard inside your pants, it must start getting painful. You try and fuck up against me, but the seatbelt stops you.”

“I’m not unbuckling my seatbelt.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to, Eddie my dear.” Richie promised. “But you’re so hard, and I want to taste you so bad. I’ve waited so long.”

“Yeah, yes, yeah we have…” Eddie grunted, shoulder moving. Richie wanted to ask him to move back, so he could _see_, but he waited. Not yet…

“So I reach over and, after I give you a good squeeze with my hand-”

Eddie moaned. Fuck, he must have copied the gesture on himself. Richie bit his lip and followed him, squeezing at his dick. Fuck, that felt good. Richie reached for the lube on his desk and squirted some in his hand. Almost time.

“I unbutton your pants, and tug the zipper down slowly…”

“Yeah, do it…”

“I want to take the time to get your undies soaking wet too, but they already are, fuck, Eddie, you’re leaking all over for me.”

“I am, I am, please, Richie…”

“So I reach inside those too, and I pull out your hard, aching dick.”

Eddie moaned and Richie knew he was pulling his dick out of his pants. Richie copied him, then said: “Hey Eddie? Open your eyes.”

Eddie opened his eyes dazedly, like he’d forgotten where he was or what they were doing. Then he blinked, eyes focusing sharply.

“Holy shit.”

Richie had just taken his own dick in hand and was consequently slow on the uptake. “What?”

Eddie was staring hard at his screen, hand frozen on his dick.

“You’re huge!”

Richie glanced down at his dick—like he didn’t know what size it was. He quirked an eyebrow back up at Eddie. “Uh, sweetheart-”

“No ‘sweetheart.’”

“-we’ve talked about this. I’ve _told_ you this.”

“Yeah, but I just thought…”

“Trashmouth?”

“Trashmouth,” Eddie agreed.

Richie waggled his eyebrows up at Eddie. “All me, baby.”

“Definitely never call me that again.”

Jerking his dick slowly, Richie nodded at his laptop. “Well c’mon. I showed you mine.”

Eddie shook himself like he was just remembering what they were doing.

“Oh, uh, right…”

He rolled back in his chair until his lap was in fully view of his laptop camera. Richie bit his lip, eyes hungrily drinking in the sight of Eddie Kaspbrak with his dick hanging out of his sweatpants, hard and jerking in his fist.

“Fuck, Eddie…”

“Well it’s not a _monster_ like-”

“Shh, don’t ruin it, you’re fucking gorgeous.”

It was hard to tell with the grainy Skype picture quality, but Richie was pretty sure Eddie flushed at the compliment. He stopped talking, at least. For a minute.

“Alright, so I pull your dick out,” Richie continued. “And fuck, it’s gorgeous, look at it. Hard and red and fat. My mouth is watering just seeing it, Eddie. I press my cheek against it, sliding down to smell your pubes-”

“Eh…”

“Shh, enjoy it, Eddie. I press a kiss to the base, then another one, a little higher up. Then another one. I slowly make my way up to the head, until finally, I take it into my mouth. I suck on the head, getting it all nice and wet. I tongue underneath, licking hard against the rim, the vein. I taste a spurt of your precome because you want this so bad, Eddie.”

“Yeah I do,” Eddie agreed, once again transfixed.

“I start working you into my mouth. I’m not very good at it—I can’t deepthroat you—but I try. I try and stuff as much of your fat cock into my mouth as it can hold, but it’s hard, Eddie.”

“Fuck, Richie, you can do it.”

Richie snorted. “I’m trying, dick! Hang on. So I pull back a little, just to get some air.”

“I grab your hair,” Eddie hissed.

Their eyes locked, screen to screen, a thousand miles apart. Eddie licked his lips.

“I tighten my fingers in your hair and pull you back down where you belong.”

Richie moaned hard, fist pumping harder at his dick. “Fuck, Eddie.”

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you?”

Now it was Richie’s turn to breathlessly gasp: “Yeah I do.”

“I shove you down onto my dick. You take it, swallowing me down.”

“You fuck up into my mouth,” Richie moaned.

“I can feel the head of my dick hitting the back of your throat,” Eddie groaned, hips fucking up in his chair.

“Oh fuck, Eddie…”

“Yeah, yeah, Richie, suck me hard.”

“Unfg, Eddie, fuck my mouth, fuck, fuck-”

“Fuck that fucking mouth of yours, Richie.”

“Eddie...”

“Yeah, yeah-!”

Eddie came first, shouting. Richie yanked himself back to his desk, drinking in the sight with his face inches from his laptop screen. Eddie was fucking beautiful, hips jerking uncoordinatedly, mouth fallen open, pretty pink lips all swollen with licking and biting. Fuck, he was still almost entirely dressed, t-shirt and sweatpants, just his dick out over the waistband, but, _fuck_.

“Richie, c’mon, suck my dick,” Eddie encouraged him.

“Touch me-” Richie wanted to fucking die of shame.

But then: “I’ll touch you, Richie,” Eddie cooed. “You sit back up after I shoot my load down your throat, and you’re so hard, Richie, your jeans are wet.”

“Yeah, please-”

“I reach over and stick my hand down your jeans, and I barely have to touch you-”

Richie moaned, jerking up into his fist. He rubbed hard over the head and then he was coming, moaning for Eddie, moaning because he couldn’t help it, imagining it was Eddie’s hand on his dick, Eddie making him come.

He kept his head down as he panted through his orgasm and blinked over and over again.

“Richie?”

“Yeah,” Richie breathed. He didn’t lift his head. He blinked some more.

“Richie?”

“Hang on, just…” Richie stood up, pretending like he was reaching for tissues when they were right there. He wiped under his glasses with the first tissue before dropping down into his chair with the box, making a big show of wiping down his dick and hands.

Eddie was frowning at him, and hey, that was no good. Richie smiled over at him.

“That was fucking incredible, Eddie my dear.”

“Not so bad yourself,” Eddie replied, expression relaxing into an easy smile. Then he swore: “I can’t believe what a ridiculous hog you’re working with!”

“I can’t believe you just called my dick a hog.”

“You better not be planning on fucking me with that,” Eddie warned.

Richie’s stomach flipped, and oh man, he was practically ready to go again right there.

“Any way you want it, Eddie.”

Eddie grinned, sharp and mean. “Oh, I want it. Some very specific ways.”

“I’m sure you’ve got lists.”

“Lists within lists,” Eddie agreed. He was leaning back in his chair, dick still out of his pants.

Richie fucking loved him. _So_ fucking much.

“So when are you actually getting your ass over here so I can do terrible things to it?” Eddie asked, and if Richie thought he couldn’t love him any more, whelp, theory blown right out of the water.

Richie strangled off a _would you??_ before it could escape his stupid Trashmouth and ruin the best thing he’d ever had. Instead he picked up his phone and made a big production of flipping through his calendar.

“Well let’s see, boop boop beep next Tuesday?” Richie said, way too fast.

But Eddie was laughing, and shooting sly glances at him, and Richie’s life literally could not get better in this moment. He was ninety percent certain an evil fucking clown was about to show up and ruin everything, his life was so stupid perfect. When one didn’t, he almost couldn’t believe it.

* * *

Richie had kinda zoned out Eddie’s panic at this point as he strolled through the airport, checking out the various restaurants and knick-knack airport shops go by as Eddie screamed a mile a minute in his ear over the FaceTime call.

“-at the last minute! Why the fuck didn’t it update on my phone?! You’ve been sitting next to the old gate since you got off your first fucking flight of the day, having a drink, and you could have been making your way across the fucking airport _an hour ago, _at a _normal human pace_-”

“I’ve got thirty minutes, I’m okay, Eddie.”

“Thirty minutes for departure! They close the doors ahead of departure, Richie! You’re going- oh, there it is.”

Richie glanced up. Oh, there it was. He grinned as he turned his phone to record the massive line of passengers waiting to board, and the sign that said they hadn’t even started pre-boarding yet. Then he turned the phone back around to himself so he could smile smugly at Eddie’s consternated face.

“Alright, so we done panicking?”

Eddie grimaced, but eventually he nodded. “Okay, yeah, sure. Panicking… averted.”

“More like, happened and is now over,” Richie snorted. But he was glancing around, looking for… yup, there it was. VIP lounge.

“Alright, I’m gonna hit the head before my flight.”

“Alright, Richie. Fly saf-”

“No I’m not hanging up. You owe me.”

Eddie’s face scrunched up. “So, what? You want me to watch you pee?”

“I don’t mean owe me for freaking out just now.”

“Well good, because I’m the one who realized your gate had changed before you did. You’d still be sitting at your old gate if it wasn’t for me.”

Richie flashed his Silver Platinum whatever the hell QR code at the front desk concierge and booked it to the private bathroom of the VIP lounge. He locked the door behind him.

“No, I mean, you owe me for all the amazing phone sex I’ve given you over the past few months.”

Eddie went noticeably silent. Then all the bluster poured back in.

“We’re going to see each other in a few hours, you maniac.”

“Yeah, and I need to take the edge off or I’m gonna come in my pants when you kiss me hello.”

“You’re in an airport bathroom, Richie.”

“And I’m all alone,” Richie promised him, locking himself into a stall. “But you’re right: I definitely can’t give the verbal performance I normally do, unless I want to get banned from yet another airline VIP program. So…”

Eddie stared at him, glarefully, for about five seconds. Then he swore and moved to get the little phone-stand Richie knew he had on his desk. Richie whooped quietly and dropped his pants.

“Ugh, are you sitting on a toilet?”

“I can’t even begin to guess what you’d rather me be sitting on, Eddie.”

Eddie gagged, mostly for show, but he was also squeezing lube into his hand so you know, grain of salt and all that. Richie spat in his hand and wasted no time getting his dick nice and wet.

“Okay,” Eddie said. “Well… you know how much I miss you.”

“Don’t make it sappy, Eddie,” Richie whined. “I don’t need to cry before I get onto a plane.”

“You cry all the time,” Eddie shot back. “And, hey! No criticisms! You wanted me to do all the work, I’m doing all the work. So shut up and listen.”

Richie wanted to fake moan, then remembered he probably shouldn’t. Instead he propped his left arm up against the cubicle wall, angling the phone down so it could see his face and dick in the same shot. He stroked himself, peering up at Eddie.

Eddie grunted. “Fuck, that angle is hot. It shouldn’t be, but. Okay, so. I miss you. And your stupid big dick.” Richie beamed up at the camera. “Yeah, yeah. But you know what I miss more than your dick?” Eddie paused significantly, bit his lip. Stroked his cock, root to tip. Richie waited, mouth open. Finally, Eddie said: “Your ass.”

Richie bit his lip and squeezed at his dick, hips bucking. Fuck, yes, fuck. He loved getting fucked by Eddie—was _particularly_ looking forward to that tonight. He gazed up into the camera, doing his best begging eyes. Apparently they worked, because Eddie continued:

“Yeah, you know I’m going to work that ass over tonight, right? Get into you with my fingers, get you all sloppy and wet for me, stretched wide and loose. Going to stretch your asshole out like a pussy, until it’s just lying there, _gaping_, clenching around air as it begs my dick to please, please fill it.”

“What the _fuck_,” Richie whispered, with feeling. Had Eddie been taking notes?

His hand flew over his dick, gazing up adoringly at Eddie as he jerked off for the camera. Eddie’s hand was moving fast, too—not like they had a ton of time to tease this thing out, after all.

“I don’t know how I want to fuck you, yet,” Eddie admitted. “You always whine like a bitch when I take you on all fours.”

Richie moaned out loud, he couldn’t help it. Eddie shushed him.

“But I know you like to see me when I fuck you. You like to kiss me, too.”

Richie nodded helplessly. He loved kissing Eddie. He could spend the rest of his life kissing Eddie.

His stomach jerked with the force of that knowledge. Not now, not now.

“I think maybe the first time we can fuck face to face. Then you can kiss me all you want, and I can hold you,” Eddie promised, voice suddenly soft. He shook himself, straightened up. “I’ll throw your legs over my shoulders. I’m not in you yet, though. I’ll hold you there, bend down to kiss you. You’ll be fucking your ass down, trying to suck me into that greedy hole of yours.”

Holy _fuck_, Eddie?!

“But I won’t let you have me, yet. I know you want this dick.” Eddie stroked his dick slow, root to tip, stretching it, showing off its full length for the camera. Richie’s mouth watered as his hand fisted furiously over himself. The sound of his skin slapping against skin and harsh pants filled the bathroom. He was so fucked if someone tried to come in.

“I’ll kiss you until we both have beard burn. Until our chins are slick with spit. You’ll be so hot against me, I’ll be dripping with sweat, trying to hold off entering you just for a little bit longer. Your dick will be dripping all over your pubes, because you’re…” Eddie’s voice cracked, he hesitated. Then he plowed ahead: “because you’re a messy boy.”

Richie’s eyes squeezed shut against the sharp punch of arousal that sent through him. Oh, fucking love you, Eddie. You beautiful, brilliant man.

“You’re such a… a messy boy, I feel bad for you. Your asshole is dropping, your dick is dripping, your mouth is dripping. You just want me so bad.”

Richie nodded frantically.

“So I rub my dick over your hole. You want me so bad, it’s so hard for me not to just slide right in. I almost do, a couple times: the head of my dick catches on your rim and you try and suck me in, but I catch myself, just in time. You cry when I pull away, when I go back to rubbing my dick over your rim, over and over, front to back. You want it. You want my dick so bad, Richie. You’re shaking. You need me to fill your sad, lonely hole.”

“_Yes_,” Richie hissed. He pleaded up at Eddie with his eyes, dick leaking. “Eddie…”

“Shhh. But I feel bad. So then, next time I drag my dick over your desperate, wet hole… I let it slip inside.”

Richie’s body shuddered like Eddie _actually_ was slipping inside him, right now. His asshole clenched. Fuck, he was close.

“It’s so easy, you’re so wet and loose. I’m balls deep without even trying, and when I pull out you clench tight around me, like you don’t want me to leave. I grind down inside you, and you’re moaning, you want to come so bad.”

“I do, Eddie,” Richie hissed. “I can. Just…”

“You ready to come?” Eddie’s fist was flying over his dick.

“Yeah, _yes_, please…”

“Shh. Okay. I’m fucking you hard, I’m slamming into you. You’re whimpering like a whore, you love it, you can’t even take it, I’m too much for you.”

Yes, yes, you are. Richie’s orgasm built in the base of his dick. Fuck, Eddie, please…

“My balls are slapping against your ass, and your dick is so wet between us. I grab it and my hand slips through it like a pussy, it’s so wet. I jerk you too hard as I fuck you, it brings tears to your eyes. But you love it that way, so I’m not going to stop. I’m going to fuck you as hard as I want, and I’m going to jerk you as hard as I want, and you’re going to beg me for more because you’re my-”

Richie came, arm slipping from the cubicle as his orgasm hit him. He bit down on his lip, trying to vaguely point his phone at his face, at his dick, but mostly just fisting himself _hard_ as he spilled all over the fucking place. Ugh. _Uugghhhhh_. Richie panted.

“Fuck, fuck…”

He could hear the sound of Eddie’s fist slapping in his AirPods. Richie smiled lazily as he looked back down at his phone and watched Eddie bend over, hips jerking hard as he finally came into his hand. Richie breathed hard and savored the sight. Fuck, Eddie was gorgeous.

Fuck, Richie couldn’t _wait_ to see him tonight, and get fucked like he promised.

“Now get on your fucking plane,” Eddie ordered him, still laughing stupid after his orgasm. “There’s no point to any of this if you miss your fucking flight!”

“Yes, yes sir,” Richie breathed, setting his phone down on the toilet paper dispenser so he could scrub off his dick and hand with single-ply toilet paper. Ew, gross. Like trying to mop up syrup with tissue paper, great.

“Hey, Richie?”

Richie grabbed the phone with his left hand. Eddie was smiling at him.

“Safe flight, asshole.”

“Love you too,” Richie promised.

* * *

Richie fidgeted nervously with his leather jacket pocket, checking for the fiftieth time that it was still there. He’d kept it in his duffle through airport security because he didn’t want Eddie to see it when he had to empty his pockets, but then while Eddie was busy arguing with a TSA agent about who-the-fuck knows, Richie had slipped it out and tucked it away securely, or not, into his jacket.

He should have kept it in his duffle, he was being way too obvious about this. If Eddie wasn’t in hyper manic stressed travel mode he would have noticed by now. Luckily Eddie was always like this when they traveled.

“Oh hey Eds, look! A Chili's ToGo. Let’s grab a drink and some apps.”

“I hate when you call them that,” Eddie grumbled, but he was checking his watch and his phone and doing the mental math that Richie knew would come out with “we’ve got plenty of fucking time,” because of course they did, Richie was traveling with Eddie and Eddie _always_ got to the airport two hours ahead of their flight (three, international).

Richie gazed helplessly at this man. Fuck: he was going to marry him.

Okay, whoa nelly, high-ho silver, hold those metaphorical horses, reign them on in (what the fuck, shut up, Tozier, shut up).

“It’s not good food, I don’t know why you’re so obsessed,” Eddie complained, as he complained every time.

“Eh, I’m sentimental,” Richie replied, steering Eddie and his Away carry-on to the Chili's ToGo.

“We’re going to be bloated for the wedding photos,” Eddie commented, and for a split-second Richie thought he _knew_, thought he was talking about _their_ engagement photos (Eddie would absolutely want to have engagement photos, he absolutely would _insist_ on them). Then Richie remembered why they were in an airport about to get on a plane in the _first_ place.

“Ben and Bev’s wedding isn’t for three days!” he shot back.

“Wheat makes me bloat.”

Richie wrapped a hand around the back of Eddie’s neck and guided him gently into the restaurant in miniature. “Everything makes you bloat. You’re a bloaty guy. I still love you anyway.” _I love you so fucking much_.

Eddie grumbled but he could hardly be expected to have a good comeback after an “I love you.” It was kind of Richie’s secret weapon against him—though he had to make sure not to overuse it, least Eddie catch on.

Richie ordered the same appetizer platter Eddie had the first time they did this, when Richie had confessed his big gay secret to him years ago. Then he ordered two margheritas for them—sugar for Eddie, salt for himself. Then he sat. Ah, fucking hell. When was he supposed to do this? Oh, shitballs: he was going to have to make the decision to _do this_ at some point in the next thirty minutes. Richie sweated in his leather jacket, right pocket feeling like it was on _fire_.

The apps came, and their drinks, and they bullshitted about nothing, Eddie doing most the talking for once. Bev and Ben’s wedding was the main topic of discussion, though hot on its heels was Mike’s big worldwide tour, still going strong, and Bill’s latest book. Eddie played with his phone, compulsively checking the boarding app to make sure their gate number hadn’t changed and their flight was still on time.

Richie breathed hard. He should just do it. He needed to just do it.

Nut up or shut up, time.

Pony’s away, or. Whatever.

“So, uh, look. I’m not going to make a scene about this because I know you’d _kill_ me if I did-”

Eddie flinched. “Are you breaking up with me? Fuck, Tozier: you couldn’t wait until _after_ the wedding-”

“What? No! What? Eddie!”

Eddie didn’t really relax any. “Well, what?! What am I going to make a scene about?!”

Richie ran a hand through his hair. “That's not what I- Oh, for fuck’s sake: it’s something good, okay? It’s good news, calm the fuck down.”

“Why the fuck would I make a scene if it’s _good_ news? Why would you preface good news with that, how do you think I’m _going_ to react if you’re all ‘look stay calm-’”

Richie started laughing, helplessly. He yanked the ring box out of his pocket, grabbed Eddie’s wrist across the table, and slapped the box down in Eddie’s palm.

“I’m asking you to marry me, you neurotic jackass.”

Eddie went very, very still. He stared down at the box, eyes wide. His gaze flickered between the box, to Richie, to the box, back to Richie, and then down at the box again. Gingerly Richie reached forward and opened the box for him. Inside was a thick tungsten wedding band.

Eddie put a hand over his mouth, eyes welling up with tears. He pointed an accusing finger at Richie. “You fucking asshole, why’d you do this in public?!”

“It’s our place.”

“A Chili’s ToGo?!”

Richie smiled softly and reached forward to take Eddie’s hand—the one not clutching the ring box. “It’s the first place I was brave enough to tell you who I was. And how I felt about you.”

Eddie swore, glaring up at the ceiling as he fought back tears. Richie beamed and grabbed for the box, pulling the ring out. He held it between thumb and forefinger, waiting for Eddie to look back to him. He did, mouth twisted up in frustration over the tears that wouldn’t leave his eyes.

“Eddie Spaghetti-”

“Fuck, yeah, yes, of course, you jackass, we are _so_ making up something more romantic-”

Richie slipped the ring on Eddie’s finger and then Eddie was grabbing him and dragging him across the table for a kiss, apps be damned. Richie reached up to clutch at Eddie’s face, hold him in place as they kissed in front of God, the TSA, and tired travelers having a brief repast at the airport Chili’s ToGo.

When they separated, Richie had to wipe at his tear-smudged glasses and Eddie hand out his hand, looking at the ring.

“This is a great ring.”

“Thanks,” Richie replied.

But Eddie kept staring at it. “I mean, seriously: this is like, exactly what I’d have picked out for myself. How’d you pick it?”

“Guess I just know you that well.”

Eddie squinted at him.

“And I might have enlisted Bev.”

“Damn,” Eddie swore. “So she knows?”

“She made me promise not to do it at the wedding,” Richie told him. He grinned. “I didn’t let her know I was gonna upstage her by asking you now.”

Eddie snorted, still admiring his ring. “You know she’s going to be so happy.”

“You know she’s gonna clock it like, immediately.”

“Who do you think will notice first?”

Richie thought about this. “Ben won’t because he’ll be too stressed about the wedding, Bill won’t because he’s Bill, and I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance of Mike noticing.”

“So it’s down to Stan and Bev.”

“Literally whichever one of them sees us first,” Richie nodded, sure of his assessment of his friends.

It ended up being Patricia, but Richie argued that was the same as it being Stan, because: Uris’s. They were a unit, like that. And now Richie and Eddie were going to be one, too.

Pfft, as if they weren't already. Richie rolled over in their hotel bed that night and slapped at Eddie's ass. Eddie grunted and stirred.

"What was that for?"

"I love you."

Eddie mumbled a string of swear words and fell back to sleep. Richie grinned, mouth pressed to Eddie's shoulder. Yeah. Eddie loved him, too.


End file.
